Community composition of bacterioplankton and cell transport in lakes in two different drainage areas

We investigated the influence of bacteria imported from the drainage area on the bacterioplankton communities in lakes. Six boreal humic lakes situated in two adjacent drainage areas were investigated. Budgets of cell transport were constructed by using a combination of hydrological and microbiological methods. Community composition of bacterioplankton in the lakes was determined by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) of 16S rDNA. The results show that bacterial import can have been an important factor shaping the composition of bacterioplankton communities in the lakes, despite that the lakes were sampled at low flow occasions. Consequently, there were larger similarities in the composition of bacterioplankton between lakes within the same drainage area than between lakes in different drainage areas.